Spreadsheet Models for Managers

Getting Access to Spreadsheet Models for Managers

If you use Excel to model businesses, business processes, or
business transactions, this course will change your life. You’ll learn how to create tools for yourself that will amaze
even you. Unrestricted use of this material is available in two ways.

As a stand-alone Web site

It resides on your computer, and you can use it anywhere. No need for Internet access.

At this Web site

If you have access to the Internet whenever you want to view this material, you can purchase on-line access.
Unlimited usage. I’m constantly making improvements and you’ll get them as soon as they’re available.

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In this session, we learned about four important
concepts. Two of them are computational — running sums and running differences — and two are
infrastructural: named parameters and reference types. The computational techniques are broadly
applicable in modeling, and the infrastructure concepts apply not only in modeling but also in
many other kinds of spreadsheet work.

Typically, people do figure out the computational techniques on their own — you don’t really
need a course to learn how to do them. But it’s much more unusual to figure out the advantages
of user-defined names or mixed references on your own. Check around amongst your acquaintances
who use spreadsheets to see what they know. You might be surprised to learn how advanced you
already are.

The first homework assignment has a fair amount of reading attached to it. Some students feel
that the best approach is to read it all, and then try to do the homework. For most of us,
such an approach doesn’t work very well.

Later, as you begin the homework, let the homework drive your reading choices. For
instance, the first homework assignment does require that you master certain techniques. Read
“Names” and “The Ripple Principle.” Then, if something confuses you, read up on it: examples
are “The Basics of Recalculation” and “References.” Learning something when you need it, and
only when you need it, is usually the best way to go.

Parentheses sometimes make a real difference. For instance
A1*B1+2 is very different from A1*(B1+2). But A1*(B1*2)
is exactly the same as A1*B1*2. When the parentheses don’t make any difference in
the value of the result, it’s not usually a good idea to include them. They tend to make the
formulas harder to read, and there’s always the chance that you’ll put them in the wrong
place. More